King found expired warrants issued by a Miami judge on Hilton for receiving stolen goods in 1972, as well as arson. She made marginal notes regarding warrants against Hilton in Miami for driving under the influence (DUI), and also cited: arson, pistol without license, battery. The warrants had been dismissed as part of a routine cleansing of old files. The report also showed that Hilton had a chauffeur’s license revoked.
Hilton arrived after King had checked his record. She told him that she was just checking to make sure things were okay. Since there were no outstanding warrants on Hilton, King let him go after warning him not to violate the preserve’s fourteen-day camping limit.
Two other forest rangers saw Hilton in the area, but the heavily redacted statements released by the police obscure the date. From the contents of the statements, it appears they saw him within days after his encounter with King. Ranger John Smathers reported that he saw a man fitting Hilton’s description in the Apalachicola National Forest near a DUI checkpoint he had set up at the intersection of Dog Lake Tower and Silver Lake Road.
Smathers wrote that it was almost sunset, when he saw a man in a blue jogging suit with leg warmers on the outside of the lower pants. The man wore a cap pushed back on his head, so Smathers could tell he was bald. His body was thin and wiry, and he seemed to be approximately fifty-five to sixty years of age. The man was using poles to help propel him along the trail. He seemed to be speed walking. An unleashed dog, which seemed to be a reddish brown retriever mix, trotted with him. As the man drew closer to Smathers, the hiker leashed the dog. Smathers noticed that the man was also wearing a large black backpack. When the hiker was just twenty feet in front of Smathers, the officer asked him how he was doing. The man quickly explained that he had just been checked by a female officer before he left his campsite. Smathers asked if he just liked to walk. “I do this every day like a military hike,” the man told him. Smathers said good-bye and told him to be careful because people were driving fast. The speed walker assured him that he would take care.
Ranger James D. Ellis saw Hilton as well—this time in the Osceola District of the Apalachicola Wildlife Preserve. Ellis found him in a remote part of the forest, west of Forest Service Road 212 and south of the Forest Service work center. Hilton had driven down a closed road and set up camp in an unauthorized area.
Hilton was surprised when the ranger approached. “How did you find me in this location?” he asked.
“I followed your tire signs.”
“I like long-distance hiking,” Hilton said, “but if you come to a WMA, you’re going to get patted down.” (WMA was shorthand for a Wildlife Management Area.)
The comment made no sense to Ellis and he asked Hilton what he meant.
“You can drive around town all day long but if you come to a WMA, you are going to get patted down.”
Ellis told Hilton that he could only camp in designated areas and that he couldn’t drive on roads that weren’t designated by signs. Then he asked to see Hilton’s driver’s license. Hilton fumbled through his wallet, having trouble finding it; but when Ellis offered to help, he found the license right away. (The ranger’s report has a heavily blacked-out redaction.) Hilton’s driver’s license had expired, and he had been cited for driving on closed roads and camping in unauthorized places. Ellis told Hilton he had to go back to Georgia and get his license renewed.
“I’m going to be driving back this way, and if I see you, I will issue you a one-hundred-seventy-five-dollar citation for your expired license and another one-hundred-seventy-five-dollar citation for driving with an expired license tag,” Ellis told him.
Hilton continued talking and asked about various areas of Apalachicola Forest in Florida.
“You don’t need to go to any national forest areas,” Ellis told him. “You need to go back to Georgia and take care of your driver’s license.”
On December 15, William Kemp and Donald Trussell, employed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, were on patrol in the Apalachicola Forest, when Kemp received a call from the area command center. A group of hunters had found a dead body in the forest; Kemp and Trussell were directed to go there.
It was about eleven in the morning when the two wildlife officials met the hunters at Forest Road 381 and 381E. The hunters said the body was in the woods.
“Do you want us to show you where it is?” one hunter asked.
The officials followed the hunters as they drove a short distance into the woods and stopped. The hunters led the wildlife employees along the side of the road until they came to a pile of palmetto branches and leaves. That’s when Kemp saw the body.
Approaching the scene, I observed, (HEAVILY INKED OUT) was also vegetation type debris that appeared to be piled on top of the body, Kemp wrote.
He and Trussell returned to Forest Road 381 to escort Sergeant Steve Norville and Deputy Alan Shepard, with the LCSO to the body, and then left. The crime scene was actually about a mile from where other responding units had stopped. The CSI from the LCSO taped off the crime scene; and with the help of CSI forensic experts from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), they began the tedious and time-consuming task of testing for even the most minute shred of evidence.
It didn’t take an expert to tell that the woman was dead, but it was not so easy to identify her. Somebody had cut off her head.
Rumors, fueled by fear and horror, began to speed around Leon and Wakulla Counties. Some said that there was at least one serial killer, perhaps two, in the area on a murderous rampage, killing and dismembering women. Hundreds of women signed up and completed safety courses sponsored by LCSO. Compared to the previous six months, applications to carry concealed firearms increased by about one hundred.
Larry Campbell, the Leon County sheriff, held a press conference to dispel some of the rumors. It wasn’t true that there were several killers on the loose. The police were following up on every lead, he said, and people should be cautious, but not frightened.
It was true that the police had no idea who had killed the woman believed to be Cheryl Dunlap.
The small communities were gripped by terror.
Chapter 5
Special Agent Clay Bridges, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, didn’t know that a search was under way for a missing hiker in Vogel Forest until he received a telephone call at his district office in Cleveland from the Leon County Sheriff’s Office on Wednesday afternoon, January 2. The LCSO deputy told him they needed help with the search.
“We think there’s foul play involved,” the deputy said.
“What makes you think that?”
“Because we found a police-style baton, water bottles, and a dog leash beside the trail. Someone else found it and turned it in. We have to suspend operations now because it’s dark and there’s snow falling.”
Bridges told the deputy that he would be there as soon as possible. The agent wanted to have a meeting that night, but there were conflicts in timing. Bridges went to a breakfast meeting the first thing on Thursday morning. He explained the situation, picked up additional investigators, and left for Leon County.
Clay Bridges had known what he wanted to do with his life from his first memories. He wanted to be a police officer, but not just any police officer. Bridges wanted to be a special agent with the GBI, the crème de la crème of Georgia’s law enforcement agencies, much as the Federal Bureau of Investigation is viewed as the top criminal investigative organization in the United States.
The GBI agent had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Making it to the GBI had required dedication, hard work, and perseverance—all qualities that would serve him well if he ever managed to become a law officer. Bridges was hired as